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Hanachirasu


fun2novel

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This is going to be a long, +1000 word negative review. It's got profanity and I didn't bother to clean up my language. Sorry, hope you enjoy my rage.

This visual novel is a complete total and utter shit. It’s the most horrible visual novel I have ever read in my visual novel reading career. Never have I read a vn that left me with SO much regret that I wasted time reading this pile of shit. It’s terrible. It’s utter shit. I don’t care what anybody says, this is not a story, this is a waste of time. This is the worst Nitro+ vn ever made. The worst vn ever made, period. No, I don’t care that there are much worse vns out there. I don’t care that there are horrible nukige full of rape and fetishes with no story. These vns don’t count as stories, nobody talks about them for their stories. Hanashirasu was supposed to be a story vn. And the story is shit. Writing is shit. Characters are shit. Everything is utter shit.

The author has absolutely no idea how to write a compelling story. He doesn’t know how to write good characters. He doesn’t know how to pace the story. Holly shit, the pacing. At every opportunity the author stops the story and goes into long unnecessary tangents and exposits about shit nobody cares about, he keeps doing it at the most inappropriate times. There is time for exposition, and there is time to move the story along. And yet, the writer of this vn has no awareness or any sort of clue, it’s like an alien wrote this garbage. He doesn’t know when to fucking shut up, I was bored out of my skull the first time I read this. And this is coming from someone who loves good info dumps and good exposition. I read hard science fiction books and love reading interesting info dumps, I love a good world building and to learn about the wonders of worlds of fantasy. But you have to do it the right way. Hanachirasu gives you entire history lessons that have nothing do to with the plot, it does nothing but stretch the game time of this horrible horrible vn. Why would I want to read it any longer than necessary, why the author wastes his own reader’s time. It’s a shit vn that’s why.

You know what broke me? You really want to know? When one of the main characters kills someone, and then suddenly right in the next scene, it was actually just the NEXT SCREEN, some stranger we don’t even know, never seen until now and will never see again, walks up to our character and exposits about how our character felt and his emotional distress, why he did what he did, his mental and psychological condition that lead to his actions, and recounts what just happened, TO THE SAME PERSON WHO JUST DID IT TWO MINUTES AGO!!!! Do not fucking dare to tell me this is good writing, or that this is a good story. It’s fucking horrible piece of shit, narratively crippled story with an even worse writing. It’s utter shit!

I really can’t see how or why can anyone love this vn. The people who love Hanachirasu also love Muramasa. And Muramasa is one of the longest vns out there, I shudder to think how much worse Muramasa can be. I can’t imagine just how much slower is the pacing with even longer shitty expositions about shit that has nothing to do with the plot. I really can’t see myself reading Muramasa now that I had the displeasure reading Hanashirasu. And is it any wonder that Nitro+ never let this guy write anything anymore. It wouldn’t be surprising to me if they retired him from the company, or maybe keep him as an honorary member, meaning they don’t let him do ANYTHING anymore.

Well, what about the characters? Good characters can make a bad story still bearable, right? Are you surprised that the characters are utter shit. No one is interesting, no one is sympathetic, no one is likeable. Nobody is developed, grows, or changes in ANY way. You might say, this vn is short so it can’t have a good character development, and that I expect too much from a short visual novel. To that I’ll say sit down and shut up, because you don’t know what you’re talking about. Length has nothing to do with how bad Hanachirasu is. A short vn can have just as a good narrative, and tell an emotionally stirring and powerful story as any other super long vn.

First of all, Hanachirasu is NOT that short. It has a hefty enough length to develop characters and have a good plot. Look at Saya no Uta, it’s a perfect example of a short vn that has a beginning, middle, and end. It develops its characters and plot. It perfectly fits into its length, and heck it even has three different endings. The characters in Saya no Uta aren’t likeable either but look how much more we care about them than we do about any of the Hanachirasu’s assholes. You want more examples? Guilty Crown Lost Christmas, an even shorter vn but does an excellent job of telling an interesting story. Sure, the characters aren’t the most developed but at least it tries to do something with them, it makes us care and it has a good paced narrative. And Guilty Crown is even shorter than both Saya no Uta and Hanchirasu.

You want more examples? Dra+Koi, is the shortest vn I ever played, it’s really short. But you know what? It perfectly fits into its length. Very quickly we know and care about the characters, the story has beginning, middle and end. It’s fun, it’s interesting, it’s entertaining, and it’s way more deeper and cool than anything Hanachirasu does. Phenomeno is another great example, short but still tells a compelling and scary story. You want non Nitro+ examples? Sure, look at Dies irae ~Interview with Kaziklu Bey~, this is one hell of an amazing short visual novel. Once again it tells a great story, it has beginning, middle and a freaking end. With few but great characters, the story fits perfectly into its length and it does the job it was supposed to do. I could go on with more examples but I think you get my point. Bottom line, if Hanachirasu didn’t have time to tell a good story and characters then why the the fuck does it waste its already short length on long slow expositions that add nothing to the plot? I’ll tell you why, because Hanachirasu it utter shit.

The art in Hanachirasu is actually pretty good. The sketchy style drawings of the characters adds to their maturity. The pencil drawings are filled with great composition of contrasting darker tones of red and blue colors. The dark overlay lends well to the overall theme and atmosphere and do a great job representing both main characters as two extreme sides of the color spectrum. There are also lots of CGs and they are also drawn really well. This is Nitro+ after all so it is not surprising that Hanachirasu looks good. But all of their visual novels look good so that doesn’t say much about the quality of the work. I mean who cares about that when the story and writing are so bad.

Besides the good visuals the game has good prose. Yeah, the narrative and the story is are bad but I’ll be the first to admit that the prose flows well. It’s descriptive set of words blend great aesthetic to present images in the reader’s mind. The prose is much closer to a book than a visual novel, even the way it writes the dialogue, is all in a style of an actual book. Prose is the only good thing I can say about the writing here. Good prose does not a good story make. And a good prose does not make a bad story. Good storytelling is not a good prose, it’s all about actively pacing the story and keep the reader’s interest. A writer who fails to accurately pace the story and move it along, has essentially doomed his own creation.

I hate Hanachirasu with passion. I hate it so much I almost hate people who love it (I don’t hate you if you love it though, you just don’t have a good taste :P). Because I really can’t understand how can anyone say this is a good vn. It’s not a good visual novel. It’s utter shit.

 

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As for Muramasa, apparently the writer was the same as Hanachirasu. From VNDB, I'd like to think that the writer was learned their lesson from Hanachirashu and apply the lesson in Muramasa, so much that the average score between those two at VNDB were very contrast (7.11 for Hanachirasu and 9.02 for Muramasa). Although I would like to say that to find out if Muramasa was really good as people said or perhaps overrated and plain horrible, well it's up to you to find out I suppose whenever it is. Regardless of that, good review there.

Edited by littleshogun
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It's one of those damned if you do and damned if you don't situations. I might play Muramasa in the future when I'm ready and open to try it. But not at this point in time.

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